Isla de la Gomera Things to Do

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There are extensive picnic and BBQ facilities within the Garajonay National Park, as well as wide open spaces for kids (big and small) to play. At the area where we stopped there was a cafe, information centre and toilets too. The BBQ facilities are quite extensive, having not only BBQs but what look to be brick ovens! It would be fun to be here when these facilities are being used, I bet the smells are wonderful (even if they are meaty!).

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La Gomera has a dense and ancient woodland of native Laurel trees and heathers. The heather is unlike what we are used to back here in the UK, being more akin to a tree and growing to heights of up to 12m. It's still recognisable as heather though, having the familiar foliage and (at the right time of the year) flowers. Beneath the tree canopy is a carpet of flowers and flowers and shrubs, dappled by the light filtering through the trees. It's all very lovely.
These woodlands exist in the Garajonay National Park, more or less in the centre of La Gomera. There are many miles of waymarked walks through the woodland - we only had time for a very short one, but you could spend all day there easily.

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The island is scattered with small farming communities, most of them a mix of sturdy and ramshakle buildings standing amidst a patchwork of terraced fields. It's hard to tell at a distance just what crop is being grown - most probably a mixture of things and almost all on relatively small scale. So unlike here in the UK where field after field is filled with the same old things - rape, wheat, potatoes and so on, picturesque as that can be.

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There are some pretty towering peaks on La Gomera, huge chunks of rock that just stick out of the mountain tops, their faces etched by erosion and painted with lichens, grasses and hardy shrubs. They are naturally at the highest points of the island and some of them can be shrouded in mist (as in the third picture here). Actually you can never know how things are going to be in the next valley - you can drive from sun to mist in a matter of seconds - and you should take this into account when driving around the island.

You can get some pretty spectacular views of Mount Teide, back across the water on Tenerife. This view is from the village of Agulo, one of our drink stops during our coach tour. The view from this distance is sufficient to let you see the massif in all its glory whislt still appearing close enough to touch it. Wonderful.

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La Gomera is very fertile and many of the terraces are there for agricultural purposes. On them are grown a variety of crops, from the more expected, such as palms and bananas, to the more unexpected like potatoes and maize. I imagine that the cultivation is pretty much "traditional" as the landscape doesn't really lend itself to large scale mechanised farming methods.

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Probably the most picturesque and stunning thing about the La Gomeran landscape is its terraced hillsides. The way the textures and shades interact as the terraces wend their way down the hillsides really is quite a sight. Some, like in the main picture here, appear to be nothing more than elaborate gardens for some of the magnificently sited houses that exist on the island.

I said the roads are torturous - take a look at this. In a loop of the bend right below us stands a church. The road winds its way up from the valley floor in a series of switchbacks and I can't even see where it went to to get us up to where we are now. Speeds are low and care must always be taken, but the roads are all in excellent condition - not at all what I expected having experienced the "country lanes" of Rhodes, Symi and Kos.